Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment.

The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.

She then appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show to elaborate further. Maddow started by stating the concerns raised by others about going down the impeachment road and then asked the candidate what made her decide to take this step, “Well, I read the [Mueller] report,” Warren answered.

When Warren finished reading the entire report, she said she “realized that this is about a point of principle.” She went on to say, “The report is absolutely clear that a foreign government attacked our electoral system to help Donald Trump. He welcomed that help. And then when it was investigated by our own federal authorities Donald Trump took multiple steps to try to obstruct justice.”

Warren said she understands why some think impeachment is too hard to tackle politically. But, she explained, “This is not about politics. This isn’t even specifically about Donald Trump himself. It is about what a president of the United States should be able to do and what the role of Congress is.”

Maddow then asked Warren if impeachment proceedings were to be successful in the Democratic-majority House, but fail in the Republican held Senate, would she still think it was a “worthy use of resources and time?” Warren said yes, and explained: “Each person has to stand up and be counted… When it’s beyond politics. When it is a point of principle to stand up and say no president can do this.”

Warren added that advocating for impeachment hearings wasn’t “what I had planned to do” while running for president. But after reading the report, she said, “I do believe that the evidence is just overwhelming that Donald Trump has committed these offenses and that means we should open proceedings.”

So far Warren is the only 2020 presidential candidate to push hard for impeachment. However, Julian Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who is also a democratic presidential candidate, did tell CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday, that “It would be perfectly reasonable for Congress to open up [impeachment] proceedings.” And that the Congress would “decide whether they’re going to go down that route. For me, I’m running for president.”

Earlier today, I told @AC360 that I think it would be perfectly reasonable for Congress to open up impeachment hearings against President Trump. Robert Mueller clearly left that option in the hands of Congress. pic.twitter.com/ThkOhNc6wf